


Brooklyn Was A Dream

by seeyaloki



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve is figuring out how to love, and how to lose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7597198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeyaloki/pseuds/seeyaloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky really did put the couch cushions on the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brooklyn Was A Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place right after the "till the end of line" scene.
> 
> Title from Betty Smith's A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.

Steve thinks it’s funny how the world turns, but no matter how much you try to feel it, you can't. The universe is spinning and the moon is circling and even though you're standing still; you’re moving.

Everyone is always moving.

Steve watches Brooklyn sleep, quiet in a way it never is when the sun shows itself. He can’t sleep. He’s staring at a starless sky, moon a pale slice and he’s wide awake, thinking about how everyone’s moving but _him_.

His mother died and a part of Steve is buried deep down with her. Six feet underground, where nothing can touch her and that includes Steve. Can never hold her, can never smile at her, can never worry her again.

He wonders if that was what it felt like for her. When she had to bury his father, the man she loved so dearly, while the only part left of him turned out weak and small and much, much less than the man she knew.

Steve knows it’s selfish, that his father died a hero, helping people, _saving_ people. But the one thing that Steve will never manage to forgive him for is that he was never there to save Steve when he so obviously and so _desperately_ needed it.

(He thinks of saving and sees blue eyes and hair slicked back and a smile so wicked and addicting that Steve had no other choice than to follow, always follow, and see where it would lead him to.)

Steve doesn’t believe in a God anymore. He used to, when he was still so pathetically waiting for his father to walk through the door, clad in his uniform, medals shining on his vest and greeting his mother with a kiss, sweeping Steve off of his feet with the radiance his mother always tried to explain in the stories she told of him.

He used to believe in a God when he was small and weak and still so dead set on believing that one day he wouldn’t be. He believed in a God when his mother was alive and when she wasn’t coughing up her lungs and things were _okay_.

(He believed in a God when they were 15 and Bucky pressed his palm to Steve’s weak heart, relieved after a night of survival even though the doctor told him that damaged heart of his wouldn’t beat at all anymore. He believed in a God for a short second then, a blink of an eye before Steve realized that the thing he believed in that moment, was actually Love.)

But right now, Steve knows what death feels like. He knows pain better than he knows the color of his eyes. He’s seen and felt so much destruction that he refuses to believe in a God who never notices, never does anything to stop it. To lessen the inescapable feeling of agony running through his veins, mixed with his blood and his DNA, so intertwined with who he is, that pain is more a part of him than anything else will ever be. 

Steve believes in helping people, and he can’t bring himself to pray to a higher being that doesn’t believe in helping people at all.

So Steve doesn’t believe in a God anymore, but he prays now; eyes wide open and palms pointed to the sky because he’s giving his everything now.

His mother’s dead and Steve is praying that she finds his father somewhere up there. Tells him all the things Steve never could. Tells him how much Steve loved him, tells him how Steve fights like he did, because it's _right_. He prays that his mother finds him and tells his father that he can be _proud_ of Steve, that even though Steve is small and weak; he never felt that way inside.

(He thinks of a bruise underneath his eye, 12 years old and so, so furious at the world and a whisper; _you're so much bigger than you really are._ A dirty rag in his hand, 13 years old and way, way too much faith in Steve.)

He wonders if this is what it feels like to be incomplete. When the two biggest parts of him aren't part of him at all anymore and everything he has left is a boy, charming and wonderful and so determined to keep him from breaking apart that he’s cracking at the edges himself because he tries too hard to hold Steve together.

Bucky really did put the couch cushions on the floor.

He gave the rest of the couch to Steve, a mountain of blankets piled on top that he crawled out from. Bucky didn't notice, he sleeps through everything these days, too tired from working at the docks to keep his eyes open most nights.

This is the first time Steve’s ever spend the night in Bucky’s new place but it already feels like he’s been missing out on something. Like he’s been missing out on how soft Bucky looks when his hair is falling carelessely in front of his eyes, and his thin white shirt shakes with every breath he releases. Steve is always scared, always staring at Bucky because he doesn’t want to miss anything at all.

It’s quite frightening, loving someone so much that you don’t ever want to look away from them.

(He thinks of yelling, 17 years old, Bucky worried because Steve never gave up on a fight. Bucky angry because Steve didn’t understand back then; _look at me, god damnit, look at me, Steve!_ And he did. Dear lord, he did and he never ever stopped.)

But Bucky looks _back_ these days and Steve doesn’t know what that means.

His mother died and he lost everything and Bucky Barnes looked at him like he would throw everything away too just so Steve wouldn't have to be empty alone.

Steve is in love.

And he thinks maybe Bucky is too and maybe they both know it, but they don’t get to decide when and where love shows itself.

Love is a lot like loss, Steve thinks, and Brooklyn feels like a dream. Quiet and still and so peaceful that Steve barely recognizes it.

Love is a lot like loss because it’s wild and reckless and it breaks you in any way it can. And love is a lot like loss because it always wins, no matter how much you fight it. But mostly love is so much like loss because it stares you in the eyes for the longest time but you never notice until it’s taken over everything you are.

Steve loses, and he loves. And he does both so deeply and so wholeheartedly that he can’t decide which one hurts more.

His mother is dead and his father never saved him and he prays to a God he doesn’t believe in and he's incomplete but he loves Bucky Barnes like he’s going to lose him. Bucky, who leads Steve to wherever he needs to go, who presses a palm to his heart when he survives. Bucky, who wipes the blood off his face and whispers to him. Bucky, who drags him away from a fight and yells at Steve to look at him.

Bucky, who’s mumbling that Steve should come back to bed.

(And he thinks of first meetings again. A boy with blue eyes and hair slicked back and a wicked and addicting smile. He thinks of how that boy threw himself into a fight that Steve was losing, how he threw the punches and won. He thinks of how that boy lead him home afterwards, talking excitedly about space, the stars and the moon and how the world turns but you can't feel it and how no one is ever really standing still.)

Steve shuffles back to where Bucky’s sleeping. He foregoes the couch and lies down next to him instead. He waits before he closes his eyes. Waits for Bucky’s arm to come around his waist, pulling him closer into the warmth of his body. He settles and closes his eyes and then he’s finally back in the one place he belongs anymore.

Steve closes his eyes, knows the world is turning but he can’t feel it. And then he’s moving again.


End file.
